


Five Deaths Yagami Light Could Have Died (for better or for worse)

by axilet



Category: Death Note
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2173197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axilet/pseuds/axilet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. Originally written for the now defunct LJ community dn_contest. Prompt: "light's death".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Deaths Yagami Light Could Have Died (for better or for worse)

_**i: leap of faith** _

He had prepared everything. The obligatory regretful note, to be delivered on a suitable date, the excuse that would not begin to worry his mother until it was too late. Well, nearly everything. His heart, which he had believed ready, nevertheless began to tremble quick as a flame caught on the edge of the wind. He looked at the deep waters flowing fast and deep below him, and the despair that he had held at bay for so long surged forward in a mad torrent. For a moment it was as though he was drowning already, with voices and the voices of memories scratching at his ears; then it was at last a simple desire for it all to end.

It was regret that held him back, for a while; regret that it had come to this, regret for his family, regret that he was throwing himself away. Everyone had been waiting for him to do something glorious, grand, worthy of his name, and the best he could give them, now, was a body in a river and maybe headline news if the reporters got wind of who his father was. It wasn’t fair, but Light was numb with cold and too much emotion, and had stopped caring some time back along his sorry path. Everything had just been so— _boring_ —

He jumped.

It was not a good way to die, but it was clean, and most importantly, not at all boring.

* * *

 

  _ **ii: winner takes all**_

“I warned you,” L said, and his eyes were dark and cold with no glimmer of pity or understanding. “I warned you, Kira…that when I caught you, you will die.”

“L,” Light whispered, “L, you’re more like me than you realize.” He stood pressed against the prison bars, his voice soft and persuasive. “You’re not like the rest of them. Surely you can see what I’ve accomplished.”

_I’ve punished the evil._

_I’ve let the good get what they deserve._

_I’ve made a better world._

_I_ could  _have made a perfect world!_

L was unmoved by the intensity that leaked like blood through the cracks in Light’s iron control. Instead, he merely wondered, like he had wondered all along: Is it a façade, or the façade of a façade, and what is beneath? How can anyone be so earnest without lying?

But it didn’t matter now. The case was over, the chase finished. The executioner’s chair stood waiting. He felt strangely hollow, and wished, for a selfish moment, that Light could have been cleverer, cannier, more careful; not so, ultimately, disappointing.

“You’re a murderer, Yagami-kun,” he said dispassionately through a mouthful of thumb. “It’s my job to catch murderers and bring them to justice.” His dark eyes blinked slowly, once; twice.

“It was my duty as well,” Light sneered. “How many criminals have you saved with this ‘act of justice’?” He almost spat the words, his expression contorted with rage and something like the desperation of a wild, caged animal. L looked at him like he was an animal, some interesting specimen to be studied beneath the lens of a microscope, and Light looked back, snarled up and hate-filled.

“I couldn’t let you win, Yagami-kun,” L said simply, shrugging thin shoulders. “L doesn’t lose. I think I told your father this once before: that I’m just as childish as Kira. I don’t like to lose.”

Light seethed, rocking back on his heels, as though he was about to leap. Instead his hands curled claw-like against the bars. “Don’t treat this like a game. This is all that matters to you? Winning?” His voice was accusing; if he had thought to prod a nerve, he was far, far off the mark.

L allowed the edges of his lips to curl up humorlessly around his thumb into what was almost a smirk. “You should know best, Yagami-kun.” He stared evenly at Light over the miniscule distance that separated them, and spoke as though to a child.  

“Justice doesn’t always prevail.”

* * *

 

_**iii: solitary** _

The room stank of sweat, of closeness and fear, of a dream deferred. It was more than a prison for his body—Near didn’t care about that. What Near was afraid of was his mind.

Whenever he thought of what he could be doing, what he had done to make this world a better place, he would place his head in his hands so the hidden cameras could not see his expression of rage and frustration; his last conceit.

_Why can’t you see?_ he screamed at the speakers, and his voice came back at him from the lurking walls, discordant and meaningless, nothing but sound and fury. _How can you be so blind?_

There were times when he could be almost rational, and would say reasonably, _How are the crime rates now, I wonder? It wouldn’t hurt to let me see, you know…_

Other times he stared at the darkest corner of the cell, transfixed, and as though speaking to an old, old friend, lost but never forgotten, he would whisper, _We had some good times once…_

In the unknown hours he slept, and dreamed that the walls were coming in, inch by inch, rising like steel bars around him, and woke up with the memory of his scream echoing in his mind.

One day he would die in that cell. But in truth he would be gone a long time before that.

* * *

 

_**iv: fairy tale** _

Once upon a time there was a boy who picked up a notebook, and out of curiosity's sake wrote a name in it, and looked up to see a man die.

There was a boy who kept the notebook...

And a boy who burned it right down into ashes, and buried the ashes, out of fear that it would somehow come back. But he could not destroy the regret, and for years afterward it was his constant companion.

And the boy grew into a man who they first called his father's son, then his father's better, then his own man. He had worked to earn that title. He was brave and smart and good, and no one knew that once he had killed another human being and thought deep down _he deserved it_.

This was a man who knew what his own hands, his own mind, were capable of, and was always watching himself...

And finally he was a man who had seen too much, suffered too much, and had thrown away the only thing that could have helped save the world when he was a child still spoon-fed on ideals.

They said, in the end, that it was a danger that came with the job, and that it was such a pity, and he was no less a man for having chosen the easy way out.

* * *

 

_**v: god is dead** _

He was going about the usual business of being God--waving about his magic notebook, offing poor buggers that he didn't like, when the attack seized him by the heart and rolled him over onto the floor. He gasped, shook and shivered--and all the time his eyes fixed on Ryuk, both accusing and pleading. Ryuk switched on his God-sight and took a look, just to make sure; and shook his head, grinning even wider than usual. Light was just as egotistical as ever, thinking Ryuk cared enough to give him a special send-off--no, it was nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the inevitably fatal affliction humans called _old age_.

"Your time is up, Light," he said casually, looking down at the pathetic bundle of humanity on the floor. "Why so upset, anyway? You had it good. Maybe the best out of the other guys who had the Note and wound up in misery. You? A whole _legion_ of fans who are going to be crying and tearing their clothes and whatnot. Count your blessings, that's what I say."

It didn't appear that Light heard. His struggles were slowly ceasing. Ryuk shrugged--though it _had_ been good advice--and took the Death Note out of the clawed fingers, which twitched one last time and were still. And that was it. Decades of entertainment, ended just as surely as Light's soul or mind or whatever it was that made humans burn so bright, as though in defiance of the Mu that awaited them in death. Ryuk allowed himself a stab of regret--it wasn't weakness, for interesting as humans were, Light was surely the most interesting out of them all.

He unfolded his wings, and jumped out of the window. He admired everything one last time--Light's idea of a utopia, order imposed on chaos, quiet and peaceful under the night sky.

It had no idea what was coming.

Laughing, Ryuk opened the door to his own world, and went through.

**  
_-end-_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the comm if you're into quality DN one-shots, it's still up as an archive.


End file.
